With all of the existing platforms and user needs, it’s increasingly important that we find ways to “go direct” to our audiences. 

Jodie Hopperton, INMA’s Product & Tech Initiative lead, recently organised and moderated the Building Direct Audiences Master Class by highlighting the ever-changing nature of the news publishing landscape.

“I truly believe we’re moving beyond a traffic era where we’re really just looking for eyeballs and toward focusing on finding the right audience,” she said. “What we really want to start looking at is how to get people coming directly to us rather than going through search — we’re looking for people to come to us and stay.”

While there are complexities in this changing ecosystem, Hopperton said, there are also opportunities to “become more customer-centric” by making it easier for users to find what they want when they want it and offering context to the news and information we provide.

“In other words,” she continued, “doubling down on building direct traffic audiences.”

Stuff seeks freedom from Google

When Stuff stepped away from advertising and then eventually publishing on Facebook, the assumption was the brand would see a significant drop in traffic. That wasn’t the case, Sinead Boucher, chief executive officer of Stuff, said.

Now Stuff is working on what it could look like if it were to free itself from Google search dependence. About 25% of its audience comes to them via Google right now.

Last year, Google threatened to stop linking to any New Zealand news after the country pushed to have Google pay for the news content they use on their site. To prepare for the possibility of that happening, Stuff looked deeply into search to see what they’re up against.

“We had a suspicion that not all search traffic coming from Google was equal,” Boucher said. “We had this belief that actually a lot of the traffic that was coming to us was from people who were just being lazy and typing ‘Stuff’ in through their search bar or browser bar.”

Stuff found a lot of the Google traffic was mostly direct traffic in disguise. People were using Google as a shortcut but intending to go to Stuff directly all along. The publisher also saw the engagement levels of those people were just as loyal as the direct audience.

Stuff's success with abandoning Facebook has emboldened the company to make a brave leap if is decides it will have to teach its audience to come to the brand directly instead of finding it through search.

“On reflection, when I look back at our intentional strategy of disengaging and cutting off Facebook and then what we learned from that, it’s made us feel stronger, more confident in our own products and our own offering to our audience — and more prepared to take a bold step if needed rather than feel like we must always tailor content and our product towards what works for these giant companies overseas,” Boucher said. “They are not our friends. They are there to build their businesses no matter what.”

Wall Street Journal deepens audience engagement on LinkedIn

For The Wall Street Journal, LinkedIn has not only emerged as a platform for news distribution but also as a space for meaningful engagement, Jennifer Hicks, director of audience reach, said.

“We saw that LinkedIn was driving new subscriptions for us,” Hicks said. At the same time, the platform was “investing in journalism as other tech platforms are pulling back or de-emphasising news in their algorithms.”

LinkedIn also appealed to the editorial team in other ways, Hicks noted: “Reporters wanted an alternative to X, but they didn’t really know where to go. [They were] looking for a place where they can engage community and share their journalism more widely, but they weren’t exactly sure where to take it.”

As it began leveraging LinkedIn, the company shifted away from brief, headline-only posts with links and began embracing longer, built-out posts with deeper context, data points, or quotes from their journalism. This new format, shared through both WSJ’s main account and individual reporters’ accounts, has proven to be far more effective at driving engagement and encouraging clicks.

Hicks explained that a simple LinkedIn post about a financial report generated minimal engagement. When WSJ revisited the story and posted a more detailed version — including insights, quotes, and a clear call to action — the post achieved significantly higher clicks, reactions, and shares. Posts that incorporated interactive features, such as polls, drove even stronger engagement.

Hicks suggested companies experiment with a variety of stories to see what drives traffic amongst their audiences.

Mediahuis sees news is no longer the default

Liesbeth Nizet is the head of future audiences monetisation at Mediahuis in Belgium. The essence of Nizet’s unique job title is rooted in one of the two threats — “or opportunities, depending on the way you look at it” — where the company needs to focus its efforts.

Mediahuis has been reevaluating its platform strategy for existing news brands to both grow relevance across the ecosystem and discover any new revenue opportunities. YouTube is providing a cross-generational opportunity, Nizet said.

For local news brands, taking lessons from its Gen Z-focused brand Spil* is supporting social media strategy shifts. Knowing that younger people want to engage, Mediahuis has created a Whatsapp group where audiences can share opinions and voice messages that can be integrated into podcasts.

The company has also been looking for inspiration from audience-first rising players.

Zetland in Denmark is a great example, Nizet said, as 50%-60% of its listeners are below 40 because of its audio-first strategy. The Mill in the U.K. is bringing investigative, regional journalism to new audiences, and NWS NWS NWS in Belgium is built for scrolling.

These examples are “less about text and more about impact,” Nizet said.

Overall, Mediahuis is working to future-proof itself by better understanding the ecosystem in which it is working. By leveraging expertise, building community, hosting events, and encouraging collaboration, Mediahuis is building an internal community tapped into the ever-evolving media landscape.

“We really need to own the future of news monetisaion on and off platform and also how to build the bridge between those two,” Nizet said. “We need to stop waiting for audiences or expecting audiences to come to us. And let’s see where they already are. And, also, let’s make news valuable again but on their terms, the way they want it.”

Moving toward Web3

Simon Kingsnorth, best-selling author and the founder and chief executive officer of marketing agency SK, picked up on what Hopperton said about AI and “answer engines” in her introduction.

“Search engines are such an outdated concept now,” he said. Whereas 25 years ago, typing in a few words and getting a million results was a “fantastic time saver to have access to all the information,” today it feels unhelpful to get a million results and not know which ones are correct. Sifting through all of the information has become a laborious task.

Kingsnorth, who has worked in digital marketing since the 1990s, said the Internet has been a “bumpy journey,” but now “publishers can create destinations where content can be truly personalised, stories can be trusted, readers can be rewarded, and power can be drawn away from Big Tech.”

This presents publishing organisations with a huge opportunity to move forward, he said, after “significant threats to the publishing and news space over the past 20 years,” and “the winners will be the public and the smartest publishers.”

This, he argued, is the path forward for Web 3.0. After outlining key aspects of Web3, Kingsworth offered takeaways:

• Build first party communities now, Kingsworth said. “This isn’t a ‘we’ll get to that in a few years’ thing. It’s something that needs to be part of your strategy now.”

• Have a Web3-ready content strategy. It must be “something that has those personalisation elements in it, something immersive, something that’s going to create a unique angle for you and be a rich experience for the audience.”

• Understand blockchain and reward users for positive behaviours. Understanding blockchain means you can “understand preference elements and personalisation.”

• Ensure there is an understanding of individual preferences.

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